Macs or PCs

Post Reply New Topic

Holy crap. What kind of hardware are you running? For me, the new versions of Ubuntu take about 20 seconds to boot (OS X is pretty much the same), while Win7 probably takes a minute and a half or two minutes.


Is it the same hardware? I mean, maybe I could buy that you see better relative boot performance from 7 than I get, especially if you are still using ext3 for your Ubuntu partition, but there is no way it has a smaller memory footprint than Karmic.


ext3 is old hat. ext4 leaves it in the dust performance-wise.

Granted, Office 2007 is loads better than OpenOffice, and it doesn't run very nicely under Wine (I've tried). But I typically use Abiword instead, and a lot of the stuff I use on a regular basis is actually more readily available under Linux than it is under Windows. It boils down to what your particular needs and preferences are, as all of the major operating systems have reached the point where they can everything most users want.

And yet neither office suites on the systems nor the boot time of the systems has anything at all to do with the performance of the systems, amazing lol. The performance on X sucks because Y sucks!

Last edited by TOGGI3 on 01 Mar 2010, 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm running an experimental CPU and GPU that are not in public release at the moment. But I wouldn't think they should be the lynchpins of performance these days, and anyway I don't think they're that much faster than current high end off the shelf junk. Boot time is all about things like driver optimization and I/O performance. I striped a couple of WD Green drives, nothing crazy expensive. I have several machines, all of which have more or less the same guts.

It's entirely possible and likely that on an Eee PC, Ubuntu will load as much as 2x as fast as Win7. But then you're still stuck with OpenOffice.

I've never seen a 1.5 minute boot on Win7.

Or AbiWord, which I prefer to either OOo or Office 2007. I don't need to do presentations very often, and my word processing needs are simple enough.


I just booted and timed it. Slightly over a minute from selecting Windows from my boot loader to getting the login screen, about another 30 seconds to displaying the desktop, and 20-ish more seconds before that desktop was at all usable- and I had Aero disabled, so it loaded what looks like freaking Windows 98. All in all, it was a solid 2 minutes before I could get Firefox started (with only a couple add-ons and no saved tabs). Ubuntu takes less than half that time, even with excessive Compiz eyecandy. 20 seconds to get the login screen, 10-15 seconds to load the desktop (depending on what all I have auto-starting) and another 15 seconds to get everything I use (web browser with a crapload of saved tabs, mail client, IM client, office apps) up and running.

I'm running a Core 2 Duo 2.2Ghz and I have 4GB of DDR2 RAM. Not an obscenely high-end system, but it's pretty good. The worst aspect of my system is the Intel Integrated graphics, but again, I had Aero disabled, so that should not have been a severe bottleneck.

Windows I basically just use for a few games. Any serious work is more easily done in Linux or OS X.

Something is wrong with your Windows install, or with your I/O performance. I would guess the former and suggest a clean reinstall.

It was a normal default installation of Windows 7 Ultimate through Boot Camp. Not reinstalling, as Windows fails at playing nice with other systems and I don't want to have to reinstall Ubuntu again.

Mac for me
I did use PCs and Windows before I got my Macs in 2004 and 2005, but I really prefer Mac.

That's how I feel about Compiz too, stupid. And skinning has been there long before OSX, Vista or Compiz. All of them are copying the concept from third party programs. Compositing windows management is also invented long before OSX came into existence.


I don't see how you can view this as positive. It only shows that Linux's driver architecture is inefficient. A proper architecture just need to provide the hooks to interface with the kernel and then it's the manufacturers' responsibility to write the actual driver. btw Linus also refused to write support TOE in the kernel, I have to say I disagree with this decision too.


I am not aware of any superior LCD support by Linux. If CRT support has been downgraded, it only put Linux behind other OSes. If you are thinking of sub-pixel rendering, I don't think it's better than OSX or Windows. Worse still, it may be illegal. The author of FreeType explicitly disabled sub-pixel rendering by default because he believes the technique infringe on M$'s patents. And yet most distros still turn it on, apparently without any discussion with M$.


With recompilation, you mean?


If you are talking about the new Start Menu since Vista, then yes I totally agreed. What the hell was M$ thinking when they designed that.

my first computer was a mac and there is nothing like them, I am on a pc now and am getting ready to buy a pc laptop but if I could I would buy a mac, I just love them a whole lot better.

Ha, the old macs definitely kicked pc butt! System 6 forever! Viva la SE 20!

I've grown up on PC's but if my adaptive device funding through the government I become re-eligible for this june goes through I'll be a Maccie

I don't think LCDs and CRTs are supported to varying degrees by any OS. Nobody's removing CRT support. They all support subpixel rendering, but even if MS has a patent on that technology, and they probaby do, nobody gives a rat's ass about their patent.



I believe it was only with Vista that MS actually dropped support for 16-bit Windows apps? I use 32-bit apps in a 64-bit Ubuntu environment all the time. It's fine.


[/quote]

I like it better than any Linux desktop environment. Sorry.

I use linux at work and a Mac at home. While the linux desktop is pretty good by now, how much time does one spend on the desktop? General purpose applications on linux are generally poor; I actually do most of my work email handling from home because the default Mac mail client is so superior.

Now, one caveat - I'm still on OS 10.4 on a PowerPC. It's quite possible that more recent version of MacOS have gotten worse.

Why are there several linux fans on the thread, but only one vote for "other" in the poll?

PC; Because I need to play video games, and overall Microsoft is less evil that Apple.

I'll agree that Apple Mail is by far the best e-mail client around. And OS X has only gotten better in recent years. Snow Leopard is quite nice.


Probably because some voted PC, and I haven't voted because I regularly use all three platforms.